A nameless reader of the medicinal herbfaq wrote:
"Poison Oak remedy: Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)
I have had more cases of PO than you can imagine ... to the nth degree. I once had it near and around my eye. A friend of mine suggested a poultice of mugwort while out backpacking. We boiled the mugwort, made an eye pack with it, and held it to my eye during the evening camp fire. Well let me tell you, mugwort grows around PO, and this mugwort must have had that % phenol derivative all the hell over it. The next morning my eye was swollen shut. How miserable! We canceled the rest of the backpacking trip and reduced some of the discomfort with a few rounds of Bloody Marys. Sorry for the language, but in all honesty, it is ¤!# shitty."

Of course, another explanation is an allergy to mugwort. Which a lot of people have on this side of the pond, dunno how common it is in North America.

Comments

I was taught that mugwort is only a preventative. If you think you brushed up against poison oak while hiking etc. then find and take some of the leaves, break them up with your hands, add some water and rub the green juice and some leaves on your exposed skin. It has always worked for me and I do get poison oak when I don't do this. How about manzanita leaf tea put on with cotton directly to poison oak. I recommended this to someone once and it worked even internally. It was in the person's throat! But I like clay to draw out the toxins and a healing salve to heal up what the clay leaves behind.

Can this poison cause the nerves system to react? My wife has Fibromyalgia and when I came home with poison oak on my cloths she somehow got it transferred to her eye lid and throat. We also noticed that the Fibromyalgia seemed to flair up. She had several days of severe pain beginning about the time the rash was breaking out on her throat. I see that the oil excreted by poison oak is extremely poisonous but there seems to be nothing to indicate any other affects than skin rashes. Other than the skin; what organs or systems in the body does it attack?